


Wushu This

by Towelhun (momhuey)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Badass Tao, Badass-In-Training Sehun, Five thugs and their big mistake, M/M, WWP (Wushu Without Plot)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 18:04:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2034780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momhuey/pseuds/Towelhun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sehun truly revered Tao and yearned to be his equal.  He had anticipated his first step on that journey would be donating to the Red Cross or singing for orphans.  He did NOT anticipate this...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wushu This

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Creator of the Universe,
> 
> Pleeeeeeease tell me to stop editing. It's posted already.
> 
> Sincerely,  
> The Edit Queen of the Universe - AKA - It's not finished until I'm dead-ssi

“You aren’t jealous?” Sehun burrowed deeper into Tao’s shoulder seeking warmth; it was cold outside the concert hall in which they had watched the opening night of Baekhyun’s musical.

“Of Baekhyun?  Because he sings better than I do?” Tao pulled his coat open and tugged Sehun inside. “Well, I’d be jealous of you too then, wouldn’t I? And Luhan’s cat for that matter.” 

Sehun stuck his tongue out at Tao and then immediately wished he hadn't.  He knew that he was immature sometimes. He also knew that Tao loved him in spite of that, or, since Tao liked to take care of Sehun, partly because of that. Sehun would take the love he could get but he wanted to be Tao’s equal someday.

Tao was mature and competent and steadfast. Tao wasn’t a dancer and Tao wasn’t a singer, but out of all of China, he was chosen by SM to join a group of dancers and singers.  SM knew that, while not EXO’s chosen public leader, Tao would lead nonetheless as the EXO representative of integrity, decency, and a heart almost too large to be contained in his body. He would set a standard for EXO and do it with humility and respect and love.  

But as much as he wanted it, he was afraid of it, too.  Tao burned hot and because of this he generated strong feelings in others.  Fans tended to love him fiercely or dislike him fiercely.  Sehun read some of the stuff in Tao's inbox and he hurt for Tao, but more than that, it filled him with fear.  And self loathing.  He couldn't take having negativity and dislike directed at him.  He was too weak to deal with anything but love, even, ashamedly, letting Tao take all the wrath for the nonsense that was HunHan.  Sehun knew that Tao was hurt by the negativity thrown at him, but he also knew that Tao would always be true to himself.  While Sehun couldn't always look at himself in the mirror, Tao could.

"No,” Sehun said, answering Tao's question. “I mean the opportunities Baekhyun has; his future. I mean, where do you picture yourself in ten years after all this EXO stuff is done?” He rubbed his nose on Tao’s cheek. “Other than with me, of course.”

“Have you met me?”  Tao laughed.  “Hello, my name is Tao and I don’t plan anything farther out than a week unless it has to do with food.” Tao reciprocated the nose/cheek rub. “Other than being with you, of course.” Sehun oomphed as Tao poked him in the ribs. “But that’s not a plan. That’s destiny.”

“You’re such a cheesy ass, sometimes,” Sehun said fondly, hugging Tao's arm tighter, reaching for that daily dose of strength that kept him on his journey of growth. 

Sehun closed his eyes and rested his cheek on Tao’s shoulder letting him turn them down the alley that led to their car. “I really do love you,” he sighed.

Tao stopped walking. Sehun’s eyes flew open at the tension that chilled the air around them.

Sehun’s first instinct was to laugh. Ahead of them were three men who looked like they came straight out of their drama video, black surgery masks and all. But the pings that came from ball bats tapping on the ground confirmed that they were not plastic.

Tao gripped his elbow and turned them the way they had come only to find that way blocked by two more men with bats.

Tao manhandled Sehun behind him and turned so that his back was to neither group of men.

“What!” Tao snapped. “We'll give you our valuables.”

One of the men stalked a circle around them and Sehun could feel Tao’s hands shaking. Sehun knew that Tao was afraid for him and his ability to protect him.

“We’ll get to the valuables in a bit…Huang Zitao.” Sehun felt Tao’s hands relax; these men weren't interested in Sehun.

“See, our…uhm…social network has you on our list. You know what a celebrity’s worth? Wushu Tao is worth a shit ton of points.” He stalked a bit closer and leaned in to leer at Tao. “I’m going to have those points.”

Sehun was livid. He shoved himself to Tao’s side. “Let’s see if I understand this. If five guys with metal baseball bats can take down one unarmed man coming out of a concert hall, there's a prize?”

A second man sidled up to stand in front of Sehun. “Damn, you’re pretty.” He licked his fingertips lewdly. “While your boyfriend’s bleeding out in the corner, I’m gonna have to do you.”

Sehun saw the man’s hand reach toward his face and then lost track of up and down as Tao shoved him toward the wall. A scream close to his ear helped him regain his orientation. The man who had reached out to him was on his knees hunched over his arm which was bent sickeningly in the wrong direction.

Tao hadn’t wasted any time and was already in the thick of it. If you were going to do it, he’d said, you’d be dead if you did it halfway. You needed to get your head in the game yesterday and fucking do it.

Sehun remembered sitting on the couch in the dorm watching old martial arts movies and Tao had laughed his ass off as two men would circle each other, and dance and feint, sometimes even taunt, before fighting with what Tao called cinema stupidity; nice, coordinated, textbook moves.

Tao had said that fighting didn’t work that way. Fighting was vicious, ugly, sometimes sloppy, and if needed, dirty. You used whatever you could pull out of your bag of tricks whether it was in the Wushu handbook or not. No choreographers; just finding or making openings and hitting with the intent to kill. And if you thought you’d have time to hit or get hit twenty times like they show in cinematic silliness, you’d be wrong. It would be over in five punches or less because the bones in hands and faces would be rubble by then.

Listening to Tao at that time, Sehun had been bewitched. The extent of the other EXO’s members’ conflicts had been with hairdressers and wardrobe techs. None of them had ever been here, in a situation drenched in pure adrenalin and meaning life or death. He’d wondered at the amount of estrogen in his body that an aggressive, dangerous Tao had him panting like a bitch in heat.

Then Sehun about lost his lunch when he saw that Tao was facing off against three of the attackers; one having been dispatched to join his partner as a screaming heap on the asphalt. Then he gasped. He remembered during the filming of their drama when a stunt double for Luhan had done this trick where he ran part way up a wall and then flipped back to land on his feet. Sehun had rolled his eyes. First, the guy had needed wires, which only emphasized the ridiculousness of the move. Second, while it sure was pretty, you needed to overlook the fact that it gave the attackers plenty of time to be ready for when you landed, disoriented, right smack in the middle of them.

Then there was Tao. Giving the three thugs no chance to react, Tao shoved a path through them and then launched himself toward the wall. As he raced up it, as if on cue, the three on the ground turned in his direction and raised their weapons. Then Tao shoved with all his might and did that same flip, only flying all the way over their heads. When he landed, he was behind them, right where he wanted to be.

Another thing Tao had shared over popcorn was that, unlike movies, your opponents didn't wait in nice orderly lines so you could fight them one at a time.  If there were three attackers, you needed to count on being neck deep in three sets of biscuits and knuckle dusters.  And it became clear that when fighting three opponents, one needed to have three times the reflexes and move three times as fast. In seconds Tao had rendered one unconscious with a sweep followed by a neck snapping kick to the head. Less than fifteen seconds later Tao had broken the jaw, the cheekbone and the windpipe of the second attacker with a blur of successive blows. Go big or go home was Tao’s creed.

Sehun couldn’t tell how Tao was holding up. He remembered when Tao first arrived at the dorm. His hands were rough and his knuckles were covered in hard calluses from years of work on the makiwara. After three years of dancing, his hands had become smooth, his fingers slender. Now those hands were covered in his own blood. The skin of his knuckles had been shredded from all the pounding on skin and bones.

His face was bloody but Sehun tried not to panic. Tough choreography often led to injury and he’d learned that the face bled more heavily than any other part of the body. Since Tao was still standing…

Then the earth lurched under Sehun as the final brute pulled out a knife.

Nothing about Tao changed; he’d been in a fight for his and Sehun’s life all along and the presence of the knife changed very little.

But Tao was tired after fighting five men. When his foot hit some slimy alleyway mass, it slid. It was only a few inches, but enough for him to lose focus just long enough for thug number five to swipe out, slicing through Tao’s coat, which immediately began to leak blood.

Tao barely flinched but that didn’t stop Sehun from howling in panic and launching himself between Tao and the knife. From the horror struck look on Tao’s face, he knew that the knife was now headed toward his back.

Then a colossal rage filled him. Tao had been stabbed. Tao had been stabbed protecting him. Tao had been stabbed protecting him while he was a useless pile of crap watching. He saw red and next thing he knew he was looking down at their attacker and was pretty sure his hand was broken.

Tao slid down and hissed as he hit the ground. Sehun looked at the thug, then at Tao, then at the thug again. Calm filled him. He gave the attacker a disgusted shove with his boot and then bent and opened Tao’s coat. He wasn’t a doctor but since all of Tao’s insides seemed to still be inside, he thought Tao would be okay. After calling for an ambulance, he sat and pulled Tao up onto his lap and to his chest, trying to keep him out of the same slop that was soaking his pants and legs.

Sehun held him close until he felt him shaking. When he looked, Tao was laughing and flinching.

“What are you laughing at? With this injury, you’re going to have to join us mere mortals for a while.”

Tao’s hand brushed Sehun’s cheek. “My hero.”

Sehun raised his eyebrow and sniffed. “Of course.” This wasn’t exactly the first step he’d imagined taking in his journey toward being the man Tao was, but it felt damn good. He stroked Tao’s hair back and held him close. As he scanned the area for more danger, he considered that the rest of the steps would be easy in comparison.


End file.
